One open standard for describing digital rights.
Rights Layer is an open specification for expressing rights — who holds them, what they permit, on what basis, under which requirements — in a single, machine-readable, vendor-neutral model. It applies to digital assets (AI datasets, software, images, video, 3D models) and to institution-grounded rights (licences, insurance claims, shares) alike.
Status: Draft v0.1.0 · Repository · Quick Start
HTTP standardized how machines communicate. OAuth standardized how they authorize. JSON Schema standardized how they validate data. Rights information — licences, contracts, terms of use, AI-training permissions, copyright and commercial-use conditions — still lives in PDFs, terms-of-service pages, product-specific JSON, and internal databases. There is no common, machine-readable model of a right.
Rights Layer defines that model. (The comparisons above describe the role this specification aims to play; they are not a claim of equivalent adoption.)
| Standard | Purpose |
|---|---|
| HTTP | Communication |
| OAuth | Authorization |
| JSON Schema | Data Validation |
| JSON-LD | Linked Data |
| Rights Layer | Rights Description |
Every right, in every domain, is expressed with the same chain of concepts:
flowchart LR
S[Source] --> R[Right] --> A[Action] --> E["Eligibility 0..n"] --> ER["Eligibility Response 1:1"] --> D[Decision] --> X[Exercise] --> XE[Exercise Event]
A Right either exists or does not. What can be done lives in
Actions. Each Action carries atomic Eligibilities — one requirement
each — answered from outside the layer by Boolean, verifiable Eligibility
Responses. When every Response is true, a Decision is established.
Events record the history. Rights Layer describes; existing registries,
licence systems, and contracts remain authoritative.
git clone https://github.com/Tomofumi1970/rights-layer-specification.git
cd rights-layer-specification
pip install check-jsonschema
check-jsonschema --schemafile schema/rights-layer.schema.json examples/driving-licence.json
Then read the Introduction and the examples guide, and adapt any of the seven worked use cases to your domain.
Normative documents:
Informative documents:
https://rights-layer.org/ns/v0)Project documents (repository root): README · Governance · Contributing · Roadmap · FAQ · Changelog
Specification text: CC BY 4.0. JSON Schema, JSON-LD context, and examples: CC0 1.0. See LICENSE.md.